Holy shit! That is amazing. I can not even begin to imagine the immense amount of pain one would be feeling after that kind of fall. My guess is the bushes might have cushioned the fall just enough to make it survivable. Either way, that is why you will never see me jumping out of a plane or off a bridge. Heights are not

He 'walked' away from that landing with just a single broken ankle, as others said, not his time to go!

It's been on the UK press tonight; apparently his main chute became tangled after he released it, he then tried to cut it away but couldn't, and when he opened his reserve chute the string pulled off and it didn't deploy so he was virtually in free fall. Just before the landing you can hear him shout 'bye' because he presumes he is about to die! Bushes will definately have saved him, hitting just the ground wouldn't have cushioned his fall at all, and hitting water would have been much the same, plus he may then have drowned.

Most likely thing is that he opened his main canopy while not stable and got the lines wrapped up on his camera. Jumping with a camera is a much more complicated thing than it seems on the surface. After this, the chances of an entanglement between main and reserve are greatly increased.

In any case, that was what's called a spinning malfunction. Not a whole lot of fun, pretty extreme G forces in some cases but with a normal sized canopy it's by far the most survivable type of malfunction. I know several people who have lived through similar experiences. One was lucky as he missed the corner of a hanger by only a few feet.

I've actually had a couple of spinners but had no trouble ditching them and going to the reserve. The rotational speed builds quickly and is no fun at all.

The scariest I ever saw was a main/reserve entanglement on a tandem jump at PLR. The instructor who's a bear of a guy was strong enough to be able to deform the 2-3 cells of the reserve that partially opened enough to get a bit of control and managed to crab their path about 200 M off the runway c/l winds were straight down it that day) and into a patch of very tall pine trees. It was just enough to slow them sufficiently to survive. In the end, he had a broken arm and some ligament damage and she cracked a few ribs.

It was a unique and terrifying thing to see from the air as I exited the plane about 10 seconds before they did and after opening my parachute saw the last few seconds of their fall (they were falling considerably faster than us due to their malfunction, I would estimate 140-150 mph when they hit the trees) and was certain they were dead. Seeing both of them actually walk out of the woods a few minutes later was an amazing thing.

I figured out at an early age that I don't do things very well the first time I do them, and well, I go with the old phrase "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you!" I'd probably be freaking out about the whole falling at terminal velocity to the Earth thing so much I'd be grabbing my belt and not the rip cord.

During the 60 year anniversary celebrations of the airlanding in Arnhem I saw a parachutist, who's main canopy got entangled. He then opened his reserve without jettisoning his main canopy first (at this time he was high enough that he would have had enought time to jettison it), the result was that his reserve got entangled with his main canopy. The whole thing just looked like a streamer. He then disappeared behind a group of trees. A few minutes later ambulances, police cars and fire engines went here. AFAIK, the parachutist did not survive.

BTW, in WW2 there is a recorded incident of a tail gunner in a Lancaster bomber, who dropped from 10.000 ft without a parachute (being trapped in his gun turret, the tail turret of the Lancaster was so small that the tail gunner just wore his parachute harness and had to leave his parachute further forward in the fuselage, to be clipped into the D-ring of the harness when he was about to bail out through the emergency hatch in the fuselage. Obviously before he had to move his turret into the correct position that he could leave it). The tail gunner survived the fall, which was partially cushioned by the remains of the turret around him.

Quoting Andz (Reply 13):He tried to pull his chute at 5,000' but jumped from much higher, so his freefall was a lot more. I saw the report on TV this morning, scary stuff!

Altitude of the jump rarely is a factor. You generally hit terminal after about the first 1000 ft and beyond that any added altitude (neglecting hypoxia) is insurance and actually increases safety as it gives you more time to deal with any problems that may occur.

Yup. He mentioned in the newspapers over the weekend that he cant wait to go back sky diving. He's skydived thousands of times before, and IIRC ranked within the top 10 in the world (only from my memory...would need to be confirmed)

Can you say 'Beer Can' without sounding like a Jamaican saying 'Bacon'?